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Legal Insurrection tries to stay above the fray

The 2016 election has been a time of increased polarization and intense negative allegations against some of the candidates. William Jacobson, a clinical professor of Law at Cornell Law School and founder of the blog Legal Insurrection, is trying to stay above the fray.

Jacobson founded Legal Insurrection in 2008, and the blog has become one of the more prominent blogs in the conservative blogosphere. According to the site’s about page, Legal Insurrection hit one million views within their first year of existence, and readership has grown since. The website gets around 250,000 visitors a month, and features bloggy-content expressing conservative views and attacking liberal views and liberal politicians, primarily Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and likely Democratic nominee for President Hillary Clinton.

Although Jacobson said the website usually sees an election-year boost, he said that the site has not yet seen that boost in this election year. A possible explanation is that the site is attempting to stay above the fray as the Republican primary has been highlighted by the controversial rise of businessman Donald Trump. For example, on March 25, The National Enquirer published a story claiming Ted Cruz has had five different affairs. On Legal Insurrection, Jacobson wrote a post titled “The Thing”, which explained,“The thing is about The Thing is that I don’t want to spread what might be false rumors, on the other hand, The Thing is now a thing on TV and elsewhere, so it can’t be totally avoided.” Jacobson’s post included reactions from those involved, to inform the readers while attempting not to be part of the problem by aggressively spreading the rumors.

This election year, Jacobson said the site is trying to stay true to itself and not get too involved in the horserace political coverage that is so prominent throughout the media.